SACU

The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) consists of South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland. It was established in 1910, making the oldest customs union in the world. The SACU agreement was revised in 1969 and in 2002.

As a customs union, the members implement one common external tariff with outside countries and charge no duties on trade between them.

SACU is increasingly involved in bilateral FTAs with foreign trade partners, mainly because it forms a single customs territority with South Africa as its powerhouse economy:

In 2003, SACU started FTA talks with the US, but these were grounded by mid-2006 due to Washington’s high demands. In 2008, a Trade and Investment Development Cooperation Agreement was signed instead, as an interim measure towards a full and final FTA. In April 2005, SACU signed a preferential trade agreement with the southern Latin American bloc Mercosur, its first FTA. The agreement was revised, to incorporate further protocols, in April 2008. In 2006, SACU signed an FTA with the European Free Trade Area (EFTA).

In 2010, the SACU Secretariat also commissioned a study into a potential SACU-East African Community (EAC) trade agreement. In 2011, SACU agreed to a set of principles to guide FTAs, and prioritized pursuing deals with Mercosur and India.

The ambitious project to forge an FTA between India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) may actually revolve around India, Mercosur and SACU.

Late last year, the African cyberspace was buzzing with rumours that the region’s oldest trade agreement, the Southern African Customs Union or SACU was about to be finally killed off by South Africa. From Windhoek to Cape Town to Mbabane, trade policy wonks were debating what the most recent moves from Pretoria regarding SACU really meant.

Chile views the recently finalised memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the creation of a Joint Trade and Investment Commission with South Africa as the starting point for the negotiation of a preferential trade agreement (PTA) with the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu).

The country’s draft policy on industrialisation is finally ready for public discussion after years of private sector grousing over its absence and the consequent devastating effects on Namibia’s overall market competitiveness.

The global economic crisis, along with other evolving structural factors within SACU, could cut a P5-billion permanent hole in revenues that Botswana receives from the customs union, the IMF estimates.

The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Tjekero Tweya, tabled a motion in Parliament on Thursday for the ratification of a preferential trade agreement (PTA) between the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) and South America’s trade bloc, called the Common Market of the South (Mercosur).

The Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) has instructed a team of technical experts to draft terms of reference acceptable to all five member states, in order to resolve the contentious issue of an economic partnership agreement with the European Union, President Jacob Zuma said yesterday.

THE Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) will be transformed from a customs union into a body to deepen regional integration in southern Africa beyond the existing five member states and to “serve as building block of an ever closer community” among the peoples of Southern Africa.

Members of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO’s) trade policy review committee raised its concern last week over the relatively extensive use of antidumping and other tariff measures by SA on behalf of the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu).

Institutional development is considered important in empowering the Southern African Customs Union’s (Sacu’s) secretariat to play a significant role in regional policy development and the associated policy-making structures.

The Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) council of ministers is gathering in Windhoek today for a meeting that is likely to be dominated by the acrimonious Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations with the European Union (EU).

17-May-2019PIANGO

Despite the failures of the EPA to deliver real development to Pacific countries it looks as though the European Union will once again, through the Post Cotonou Agreement, push for enhanced and undistorted access for European investments to Pacific resources.

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